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FRIEND OF THE FAMILY (aka “Elke”)

This film, directed by Edward Holzman, who also co-wrote it with April Moskowitz, was originally released in 1995 as “Elke”, that was the title when I first saw it on Cinemax, but at some point it was re-titled “Friend of The Family.”

It’s about The Stillman family. Jeff Stillman (Burke Morgan, billed as C.T. Miller) is a wealthy lawyer, living with his 2nd wife, Linda (Griffen Drew, billed as Annelyn Griffen Drew), and his two late-teenage children, son Josh (Will Potter) and daughter Montana (Lisa Boyle, billed as Lissa Boyle). Despite the creature comforts this family has (they live in a large two-story house with a pool in the back), they’re not very happy. Jeff is a workaholic, and therefor Linda finds herself often home alone, and feeling neglected. She’s also disrespected by her stepdaughter Lisa, who is a promiscuous party girl (the opening scene of the film is her topless in the pool with a man). And son Josh is a shy young man in college, studying to become a lawyer at his father’s insistence, but he really wants to follow his heart and become a movie director, which his father thinks is a worthless dream.

Into this house comes Elke (Shauna O’Brien), the younger sister of an old family friend of Linda’s, who is traveling through town and needs a place to stay for awhile. Linda invites her to stay with them and, over the next few days, Elke becomes a confidant to each member of the family, trying to help them with each of their problems. She has sex, separately, with both Linda and Jeff. But don’t worry, it’s not really considered cheating because,somehow, the act of having sex with Elke re-sparks their affection for each other, and the couple reconcile, with plans to go on a 2nd honeymoon and have a baby. Meanwhile, Josh slowly overcomes his shyness, and begins a relationship with Lisa’s best friend, Laura (played by Raelyn Saalman), and Linda begins to realize that she should try to find a man that isn’t just interested in her for sex. The movies ends @ a Christmas party, where everyone seems to be happy.

The key for attraction for this film is the appearance of O’Brien as Elke. This was early in her career, when she still had her small natural breasts, and she just oozes sex appeal. The downside of this film is that she only has two full sex scenes, the one with Miller and the one with Drew, but both are extremely erotic, especially the lesbian scene, which takes place in a bathtub. There were hints of her character almost having sex with Potter and Boyle, but they didn’t follow through on either of those, which I feel was a waste. Potter does get a very hot sex scene with Saalman, but Boyle only gets a few suggested sex scenes in the film, but none of them are complete. But Miller and Drew do get a sex scene after they reconcile, and that’s also good.